Air Cargo Congestion ‘Will Ripple Outward' After Heathrow Airport Closure
London's Heathrow Airport shut down Friday after a large fire at an electrical substation caused a power outage, disrupting 1,350 flights and putting the state of air cargo passing through the hub in disarray.
After 4 p.m. local time, the airport said it was safely able to restart with a reduced operation, with the first flight touching down at Heathrow nearly two hours later. The airport, which is the busiest in Europe, hopes to return to a full schedule on Saturday.
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But for air cargo, it will likely take several days to mobilize planes, cargo carriers and flight crews, as well as clear backlogs. Anita Mendiratta, an aviation and tourism consultant, told the Associated Press roughly 4,000 tons of cargo were stranded by the closure.
According to live capacity and air demand data from air cargo software and consulting provider Rotate, 12 percent of European cargo has been directly impacted by the closure. Trans-Atlantic capacity is most affected, with 20 percent of cargo capacity on the lane either going to or from Heathrow.
'The Heathrow closure isn't just another logistics issue; it's a real-time stress test for supply chain resilience. Businesses must demonstrate how quickly they can pivot under pressure,' said Vitaliano Tobruk, a director at Moody's who focuses on supplier risk. 'The E.U.'s major cargo hubs, such as Frankfurt, Amsterdam Schiphol and Paris are absorbing the overflow, but capacity is not unlimited, and congestion will ripple outward. Any companies that rely on supply chains which are too dependent on single transit points would now be facing difficulties.'
Heathrow is a critical air freight hub, with 215.6 billion pounds ($278.6 billion) worth of cargo was imported and exported through the airport last year, totaling over 1.5 million metric tons.
The airport accounted for 67.7 percent of U.K. air freight imports in 2024, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence data.
'The second and third largest airports, East Midlands and Stanstead, each accounted for less than 10 percent of imports and so may not be able to take up all the slack while the smaller airports won't have the handling capabilities or onward logistics,' said Chris Rogers, head of supply chain research at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
IAG Cargo, which has a hub in Heathrow and said its operations were temporarily disrupted, began accepting new cargo bookings as of Friday afternoon. The company has not commented on how it expects to handle potential backlogs.
IAG's Heathrow hub handles over 500,000 metric tons of cargo every year. IAG Cargo transports cargo using the belly capacity of IAG's sister airlines, including British Airways, Iberia, Vueling, Aer Lingus and Level.
The British International Freight Association (BIFA) noted that this usage of belly capacity in passenger aircraft could pose problems.
'When flights to and from LHR are restored, there will be a considerable influx in demand by passengers for seats to continue their journeys. Potentially this will restrict the capacity to move cargo,' BIFA said in a Friday statement.
'Supply chains work based on a consistent flow of goods and this has been severely interrupted,' BIFA said. 'For exports, the immediate concern will be that airline sheds will fill up rapidly and be unable to accept fresh freight deliveries, which will then affect other parties. For imports, freight will not arrive at or be diverted from its original final destination.'
An operational update from Flexport indicated that any export shipments booked from Friday through Sunday are now scheduled for Monday.
The digital freight forwarder cited a noticeable increase in requests to export from surrounding airports, including but not limited to Amsterdam, Manchester and Paris.
For U.K. imports, Flexport expects significant delays in pickups due to disruptions and emergency service activity at the airport. The company anticipates more imports will be diverted to Birmingham and Manchester.
A DHL spokesperson told the New York Times that the logistics company is using ground transport to reroute shipments that were already at Heathrow to other British airports.
Heathrow's closure generated some criticism from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
'How is it that critical infrastructure—of national and global importance—is totally dependent on a single power source without an alternative,' said Willie Walsh, IATA's director general. 'If that is the case—as it seems—then it is a clear planning failure by the airport.'
Airports worldwide got a similar response last July, when a software glitch from cybersecurity company Crowdstrike caused a global IT outage that grounded thousands of flights worldwide. The incident caused mass delays and cancellations throughout the day and disrupted cargo handling operations with weeklong backlogs.
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